This review contains spoilers
Spoilers only discussed at the very bottom
Oh boy, did this game grind my teeth. Evan’s Remains is one of those titles that thinks it’s smarter than you; worst part is, it’s bloody right. We’ve all engaged with products that came from the M. Night school of hard knocks wherein the creators believed themselves so much wiser than their target audience, they felt the constant need to subvert expectations; and from my own history alone, I’ve experienced this fervor with such games as Observation, Antichamber, Witness, and Enslaved -- solid releases hampered by devs more interested in impressing people than telling a thematically-finite tale.
Evan’s Remains risked falling into that trap -- after all, its indulgence in the mystery genre inherently warranted the twists-and-turns pioneered by prior classics. Yet it’s the intricate-execution by writer/creator Matías Schmied that saves it from the pitfalls of its cogenitors (his script firmly guiding your experience whilst subtly taunting you for your ineptitude). The premise is you’re a young woman named Dysis sent to a nameless isle to find the eponymous Evan: three years before the events of the game, he disappeared without a trace, and now that he’s shown signs of life, his multimillion dollar company is very interested in bringing him back.
There’s a futuristic backdrop to the whole shebang done to justify all the crazy tech within the world, from Dysis’s pocket dimension to the island’s “City of Tomorrow” structures; however, it never feels science fictiony, and Schmied’s ability to hone in on the grounded DNA of his plot forms the backbone of why the game works so well -- like the best of social sci-fi, it’s more interested in exploring the human condition than fantasizing about implausible gizmos.
A large part of that success derives from ER not wasting time reveling in its lore: while the isle has a deep mythos, it’s almost always relegated to the back in favor of Dysis’s introspections as well as her interactions with fellow explorer Clover. This young runt has his own purposes for being there, with Schmied consistently using the guy's philosophy to provide contemporary life lessons to both the audience and various characters within the game. Some of these points are blatantly false (ex. Clover lamenting Dysis’ obsessions with money when money is definitively proven to be tied to happiness), others much more relatable (the idea of pushing self-improvement initiatives to another date, thinking there will always be time later until there is none), but what constantly fascinated me about the whole ordeal was the execution. Not once did I ever feel like Clover was coming across as smug or hifalutin in his discourses to Dysis, and that’s a testament to the quality of the prose (as well as the English localization) - usually, in fiction, these kinds of sage-like, holier-than-thou characters warrant a punch to the face or kick to the groin (see Impa from Skyward Sword; Mordin from Mass Effect), and the fact that I didn’t want to do either to Clover speaks well of his composition.
The mystery itself is effectuated quite well: Schmied and his team actually have their characters speak directly to one another when asking and answering questions, as opposed to engaging in annoyingly prolonged methods ala deliberate vagueness for the sake of deliberate vagueness. And when he does pull the rug out from under you, as frustrating as it appears at first, the disclosure of previously-lain breadcrumbs combined with naturally-divulged revelations goes a long way towards building up to a second emotionally-riveting climax. It’s a game I highly recommend going into with little foresight.
The biggest criticisms I have with the narrative are two-fold: first, there’s a severe lack of connecting tissue between the aforementioned convos of our two protagonists and the motivators behind the endgame pronouncements. Yes, the writers do have a B thread that’s technically meant to serve as a link; however, not only is it tethered poorly, but a number of other unrelated plot threads are outright abandoned(+).
Second is that a lot of macro elements ultimately don’t make a lot of sense when you put even a little thought into them, but as this involves extensive spoilers, you’ll have to learn what I mean below (AFTER beating the game)++.
Evan’s Remains won’t catch your attention with just its story, though. Despite being made by a small team, this is one of the best-looking retro games I’ve ever seen: so much so, in fact, that for five straight minutes after booting it up, I wrote extensive notes about the insane production value I was observing on-hand. And so, let me list for you all the kinds of details maitan69 put into its post-SNES aesthetic: water surfaces reflect every visage in real time, sun particles dot the oceanic top, fresh wind jostles flutterable objects in your vicinity (hair, clothes, leaves), characters actually blink, afterimages are produced following a turbo jump, hard stopping produces a plume of dirt, waterfalls bounce loose aqua motes off your hat, vistas in the horizon display pristine animation work (smog, clouds, citiscapes, celestial bodies), I’m sure I’m missing more. The point is a lot of sweat, blood, and tears went into the graphics of Evan’s Remains, and it consequently deserves all your attention.
Of course, there are some small setbacks: blinking occurs at a tempo rather than natural hum, limbs appear as uncanny stumps due to the absence of defined appendages/shoes, shadows are relegated to bland circles at the base of each model, and I was not a fan of the game’s pseudo-depiction of dynamic lighting on Dysis (when running, her back leg is wholly darkened as though burnt to a crisp). In addition, the design of the atoll’s ancient civilization is a bit mixed, the devs opting for some neo-Mayan architecture that’s pleasant to gaze at, at the expense of not being particularly unique.
One of the stranger decisions made by maitan69 is their concoction of numerous thumbnails for their character dialogue, only for a fair chunk of them to not be used much whilst others pop-up extraneously. Don’t get me wrong, the portraiture itself is well-drawn, representing an Americanized anime style that hearkens back to Super Nintendo JRPGs: I just wish more of the dormant profiles had been incorporated versus the same 5 or so templates you see ad nauseam.
Speaking of the SNES, the score for Evan’s Remains, primarily done by Schmied himself alongside Tomás Batista, is hit-or-miss. On the one hand, it’s clearly inspired by the iconic console’s library (I personally heard some David Wise and Uematsu amongst others), thus leading to a number of genuinely-enthralling tunes. On the other hand, to get to those tunes, you need to sit through some of the worst synth music I've ever had the misfortune to hear in a video game, and I don’t mean synths as in the use of synthesizers to replicate instruments, but rather the use of synthesizers to replicate electronica. That’s right, for the first couple hours of your journey, be prepared to protect your ears from some nasally-sounding beats straight out of the 8-bit era, from French Horns filtered through elephantine mutes to a keyboard that literally sounds like an old Casiotone product from the 80s.
Luckily, as things progress, Schmied dials back his nostalgic tendencies in favor of a more organically-sounding OST adorned with somberly-atmospheric tracks: tracks that successfully elevate the games’ innumerable story beats to emotional heights.
Voice acting is relegated to personalized dins played during each character’s respective dialogue, meaning SFX encompasses the remaining soundscape. In comparison to the graphics, it’s definitely been given less priority: there’s no whoosh to the effervescent breeze, no differentiation between jumps or landing zones, and while footsteps were granted some diversity, the synchronization isn’t the best. To be clear, nothing is distracting; it’s more-so that nothing stands out, which is a bit of let-down given the otherworldly beauty.
Similar to Even the Ocean, Evan’s Remains interposes puzzle-platforming sections between its narrative drops, and though short, they’re actually quite good, entailing you min-maxing various switches for the sake of circumventing an en-raised scaffold. There’s even some tongue-in-cheek drollery thrown your way wherein NPCs will question the futility of Dysis doing these tasks when she could’ve just walked/swam around them(+++).
Fundamentally, though, it’s the story which’ll be your draw to the game, a facet I absolutely praise. Yes, Schmied believes himself your intellectual-superior, but you know what, unlike so many creatives who go this route, he actually has the repertoire to show for it. And with a smooth price tag, you can’t go wrong checking his product out.
NOTES:
+++You technically have the option to skip these sections, though the game encourages their completion via Dysis remarking that it feels right to do them.
-I did appreciate Schmied including all his [Patreon?] backers in the end credits.
-Didn’t get a chance to say this in the main body, but the interplay between Dysis and Clover is worth studying as a way of showcasing how to build-up a surprisingly authentic relationship betwixt strangers.
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SPOILERS
+/++What I mean is the game’s A plot throws all these themes at you regarding valuing the true purpose of life over artificial gains like materialism, only for the overarching B plot to be Evan’s conflicts with his corporation. There’s no doubt I’m possibly misremembering things, so take this diatribe with a grain of salt, but IIRC, Evan bailed because he had dirt on the company, leaving his friend Andre to deal with the aftermath. He sent the original message out as a way of drumming up media attention so that his inevitable whistleblow return would garner as much attention as possible.
I say it loosely ties things together because this whole information warfare scheme is very much at odds with the main plot involving Evan and Andre conspiring to give Clover a happy ending. Yes, I get that Clover helped change Evan’s views on life, but that’s a relatively-underdeveloped subplot and one that doesn’t explain why we needed this extensive corpo backstory; if anything, it's been set-up purely for sequelbait. Ask yourself if Evan and Andre had to be high-level salarymen for any of the story to progress?
Worse still is the notion that Dysis was arbitrarily-selected solely because of her name. I get the game kind of gives a justification via Andre implying they wanted authentic reactions from the surrogate sister figure, but would a highly-trained actress have really been any less effective? Given the futurism on-display, you’re really telling me these two brainiacs thought it better to psychologically-traumatize a random chick instead of paying a Thespian performer to undergo the exact same ordeal? It’s without a doubt the most nonsensical part of an otherwise well-told mystery.
Oh, and to add salt to the wounds, Dysis doesn’t even get an opportunity to speak before Clover and his sisters’ graves -- in fact, it’s implied she was outright drugged so that Andre could bury the bodies in secret before the game cuts to credits.
In terms of dropped plot threads, you’ve got things like how they found the island/Clover’s village, Dysis’s arc of transitioning to a less-consumerist person, the aforementioned whistleblowing, and Andre’s reasoning for even aiding the bunch.
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Oh boy, did this game grind my teeth. Evan’s Remains is one of those titles that thinks it’s smarter than you; worst part is, it’s bloody right. We’ve all engaged with products that came from the M. Night school of hard knocks wherein the creators believed themselves so much wiser than their target audience, they felt the constant need to subvert expectations; and from my own history alone, I’ve experienced this fervor with such games as Observation, Antichamber, Witness, and Enslaved -- solid releases hampered by devs more interested in impressing people than telling a thematically-finite tale.
Evan’s Remains risked falling into that trap -- after all, its indulgence in the mystery genre inherently warranted the twists-and-turns pioneered by prior classics. Yet it’s the intricate-execution by writer/creator Matías Schmied that saves it from the pitfalls of its cogenitors (his script firmly guiding your experience whilst subtly taunting you for your ineptitude). The premise is you’re a young woman named Dysis sent to a nameless isle to find the eponymous Evan: three years before the events of the game, he disappeared without a trace, and now that he’s shown signs of life, his multimillion dollar company is very interested in bringing him back.
There’s a futuristic backdrop to the whole shebang done to justify all the crazy tech within the world, from Dysis’s pocket dimension to the island’s “City of Tomorrow” structures; however, it never feels science fictiony, and Schmied’s ability to hone in on the grounded DNA of his plot forms the backbone of why the game works so well -- like the best of social sci-fi, it’s more interested in exploring the human condition than fantasizing about implausible gizmos.
A large part of that success derives from ER not wasting time reveling in its lore: while the isle has a deep mythos, it’s almost always relegated to the back in favor of Dysis’s introspections as well as her interactions with fellow explorer Clover. This young runt has his own purposes for being there, with Schmied consistently using the guy's philosophy to provide contemporary life lessons to both the audience and various characters within the game. Some of these points are blatantly false (ex. Clover lamenting Dysis’ obsessions with money when money is definitively proven to be tied to happiness), others much more relatable (the idea of pushing self-improvement initiatives to another date, thinking there will always be time later until there is none), but what constantly fascinated me about the whole ordeal was the execution. Not once did I ever feel like Clover was coming across as smug or hifalutin in his discourses to Dysis, and that’s a testament to the quality of the prose (as well as the English localization) - usually, in fiction, these kinds of sage-like, holier-than-thou characters warrant a punch to the face or kick to the groin (see Impa from Skyward Sword; Mordin from Mass Effect), and the fact that I didn’t want to do either to Clover speaks well of his composition.
The mystery itself is effectuated quite well: Schmied and his team actually have their characters speak directly to one another when asking and answering questions, as opposed to engaging in annoyingly prolonged methods ala deliberate vagueness for the sake of deliberate vagueness. And when he does pull the rug out from under you, as frustrating as it appears at first, the disclosure of previously-lain breadcrumbs combined with naturally-divulged revelations goes a long way towards building up to a second emotionally-riveting climax. It’s a game I highly recommend going into with little foresight.
The biggest criticisms I have with the narrative are two-fold: first, there’s a severe lack of connecting tissue between the aforementioned convos of our two protagonists and the motivators behind the endgame pronouncements. Yes, the writers do have a B thread that’s technically meant to serve as a link; however, not only is it tethered poorly, but a number of other unrelated plot threads are outright abandoned(+).
Second is that a lot of macro elements ultimately don’t make a lot of sense when you put even a little thought into them, but as this involves extensive spoilers, you’ll have to learn what I mean below (AFTER beating the game)++.
Evan’s Remains won’t catch your attention with just its story, though. Despite being made by a small team, this is one of the best-looking retro games I’ve ever seen: so much so, in fact, that for five straight minutes after booting it up, I wrote extensive notes about the insane production value I was observing on-hand. And so, let me list for you all the kinds of details maitan69 put into its post-SNES aesthetic: water surfaces reflect every visage in real time, sun particles dot the oceanic top, fresh wind jostles flutterable objects in your vicinity (hair, clothes, leaves), characters actually blink, afterimages are produced following a turbo jump, hard stopping produces a plume of dirt, waterfalls bounce loose aqua motes off your hat, vistas in the horizon display pristine animation work (smog, clouds, citiscapes, celestial bodies), I’m sure I’m missing more. The point is a lot of sweat, blood, and tears went into the graphics of Evan’s Remains, and it consequently deserves all your attention.
Of course, there are some small setbacks: blinking occurs at a tempo rather than natural hum, limbs appear as uncanny stumps due to the absence of defined appendages/shoes, shadows are relegated to bland circles at the base of each model, and I was not a fan of the game’s pseudo-depiction of dynamic lighting on Dysis (when running, her back leg is wholly darkened as though burnt to a crisp). In addition, the design of the atoll’s ancient civilization is a bit mixed, the devs opting for some neo-Mayan architecture that’s pleasant to gaze at, at the expense of not being particularly unique.
One of the stranger decisions made by maitan69 is their concoction of numerous thumbnails for their character dialogue, only for a fair chunk of them to not be used much whilst others pop-up extraneously. Don’t get me wrong, the portraiture itself is well-drawn, representing an Americanized anime style that hearkens back to Super Nintendo JRPGs: I just wish more of the dormant profiles had been incorporated versus the same 5 or so templates you see ad nauseam.
Speaking of the SNES, the score for Evan’s Remains, primarily done by Schmied himself alongside Tomás Batista, is hit-or-miss. On the one hand, it’s clearly inspired by the iconic console’s library (I personally heard some David Wise and Uematsu amongst others), thus leading to a number of genuinely-enthralling tunes. On the other hand, to get to those tunes, you need to sit through some of the worst synth music I've ever had the misfortune to hear in a video game, and I don’t mean synths as in the use of synthesizers to replicate instruments, but rather the use of synthesizers to replicate electronica. That’s right, for the first couple hours of your journey, be prepared to protect your ears from some nasally-sounding beats straight out of the 8-bit era, from French Horns filtered through elephantine mutes to a keyboard that literally sounds like an old Casiotone product from the 80s.
Luckily, as things progress, Schmied dials back his nostalgic tendencies in favor of a more organically-sounding OST adorned with somberly-atmospheric tracks: tracks that successfully elevate the games’ innumerable story beats to emotional heights.
Voice acting is relegated to personalized dins played during each character’s respective dialogue, meaning SFX encompasses the remaining soundscape. In comparison to the graphics, it’s definitely been given less priority: there’s no whoosh to the effervescent breeze, no differentiation between jumps or landing zones, and while footsteps were granted some diversity, the synchronization isn’t the best. To be clear, nothing is distracting; it’s more-so that nothing stands out, which is a bit of let-down given the otherworldly beauty.
Similar to Even the Ocean, Evan’s Remains interposes puzzle-platforming sections between its narrative drops, and though short, they’re actually quite good, entailing you min-maxing various switches for the sake of circumventing an en-raised scaffold. There’s even some tongue-in-cheek drollery thrown your way wherein NPCs will question the futility of Dysis doing these tasks when she could’ve just walked/swam around them(+++).
Fundamentally, though, it’s the story which’ll be your draw to the game, a facet I absolutely praise. Yes, Schmied believes himself your intellectual-superior, but you know what, unlike so many creatives who go this route, he actually has the repertoire to show for it. And with a smooth price tag, you can’t go wrong checking his product out.
NOTES:
+++You technically have the option to skip these sections, though the game encourages their completion via Dysis remarking that it feels right to do them.
-I did appreciate Schmied including all his [Patreon?] backers in the end credits.
-Didn’t get a chance to say this in the main body, but the interplay between Dysis and Clover is worth studying as a way of showcasing how to build-up a surprisingly authentic relationship betwixt strangers.
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SPOILERS
+/++What I mean is the game’s A plot throws all these themes at you regarding valuing the true purpose of life over artificial gains like materialism, only for the overarching B plot to be Evan’s conflicts with his corporation. There’s no doubt I’m possibly misremembering things, so take this diatribe with a grain of salt, but IIRC, Evan bailed because he had dirt on the company, leaving his friend Andre to deal with the aftermath. He sent the original message out as a way of drumming up media attention so that his inevitable whistleblow return would garner as much attention as possible.
I say it loosely ties things together because this whole information warfare scheme is very much at odds with the main plot involving Evan and Andre conspiring to give Clover a happy ending. Yes, I get that Clover helped change Evan’s views on life, but that’s a relatively-underdeveloped subplot and one that doesn’t explain why we needed this extensive corpo backstory; if anything, it's been set-up purely for sequelbait. Ask yourself if Evan and Andre had to be high-level salarymen for any of the story to progress?
Worse still is the notion that Dysis was arbitrarily-selected solely because of her name. I get the game kind of gives a justification via Andre implying they wanted authentic reactions from the surrogate sister figure, but would a highly-trained actress have really been any less effective? Given the futurism on-display, you’re really telling me these two brainiacs thought it better to psychologically-traumatize a random chick instead of paying a Thespian performer to undergo the exact same ordeal? It’s without a doubt the most nonsensical part of an otherwise well-told mystery.
Oh, and to add salt to the wounds, Dysis doesn’t even get an opportunity to speak before Clover and his sisters’ graves -- in fact, it’s implied she was outright drugged so that Andre could bury the bodies in secret before the game cuts to credits.
In terms of dropped plot threads, you’ve got things like how they found the island/Clover’s village, Dysis’s arc of transitioning to a less-consumerist person, the aforementioned whistleblowing, and Andre’s reasoning for even aiding the bunch.
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